Jesse Ventura addresses Minnesota's referendum to ban gay marriages, civil unions and domestic partnerships

He might as well have been talking about Bob Vander Plaats and the Iowa Family Leader's scorched earth misuse of Iowa's judicial retention mechanism, on its way to subjecting marriage equality in Iowa to a popular vote. By the way, the surveys in Minnesota regarding marriage equality are much grimmer than the polls in Washington State and Maine, which show the electorate leaning toward endorsing the idea.


(Cara Schulz via GoodAsYou)

Like Lazarus, Christian political hustler Ralph Reed, has risen from the disgrace of his role in the Jack Abramoff scandal and is now exciting Minnesota and Iowa homophobia, through an antigay marriage referendum in the former state and an antigay judicial recall in the latter as a means to profitably build up his new political organization.
      From the New York Times:

...The Faith and Freedom Coalition, formed in 2009, is Mr. Reed’s attempt to do the same on the right.

     To identify religious voters most likely to vote Republican, the group used 171 data points.

      It acquired megachurch membership lists. It mined public records for holders of hunting or boating licenses, and warranty surveys for people who answered yes to the question “Do you read the Bible?” It determined who had downloaded conservative-themed books, like “Going Rogue” by Sarah Palin, onto their e-readers, and whether those people also drove pickup trucks. It drilled down further, looking for married voters with children, preferably owners of homes worth more than $100,000.

      Finally, names that overlapped at least a dozen or so data points were overlaid with voting records to yield a database with the addresses and, in many cases, e-mail addresses and cellphone numbers of the more than 17 million faith-centric registered voters — not just evangelical Protestants but also Mass-attending Catholics. The group is also reaching out to nearly two million more people who have never registered to vote.

     ...In addition to its presidential election turnout campaign, the group plans to focus on two state ballot measures: a proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in Minnesota and an effort to recall an Iowa Supreme Court justice who voted to legalize same-sex marriage in the state.

      Mr. Reed and his allies agree that social issues alone will not turn the election.